


not without a softness showing

by sublime_jumbles



Series: cozy mystery au [2]
Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Belly Kink, Belly Rubs, Chubby Ethan, Ethan and Vanessa are both bi and that is very important to me, F/M, Feeding Kink, Fluff, Light Angst, Non-Sexual Kink, Psychic Abilities, Supernatural Elements, Vanessa is working on being chill with her feelings, Weight Gain, Werewolves, all Vanessas are ace Vanessas, she was a witch he owned a cafe what more can i say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27357523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sublime_jumbles/pseuds/sublime_jumbles
Summary: Ethan makes a disbelieving little noise, and she looks up to see him hefting the cauldron of candy onto his hip. “Christ, Vanessa, how much’ve you got in here?”She sets the herbs down on the kitchen table and tosses a coy little smile at him, and his face splits in a grin as he hauls the cauldron outside. “Everyone knows the witch has the best candy.”“Well then,” he says over his shoulder, “there’s one more reason I’m lucky to be dating the witch.”OR: new relationships are hard and dating while ace is harder, but luckily the local werewolf is very soft. (so is Vanessa's heart, but don't tell anyone.)
Relationships: Ethan Chandler/Vanessa Ives, Vanessa Ives & Mina Harker
Series: cozy mystery au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998277
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47





	not without a softness showing

**Author's Note:**

> i really wanted this to be ready for the Halloween/full moon/Ace Week power combo, but ... yanno. i hope you enjoy it anyway!! it goes great with some discount Halloween candy.
> 
> the aesthetics of this au are heavily inspired by [these looks](https://broken-sonnets.tumblr.com/post/164819469151/penny-dreadful-bts-eva-green-josh-hartnett) from the penny dreadful behind the scenes footage!
> 
> as always, big thanks to wy for being my fearless alpha reader and for developing this au with me!!
> 
> title from "soap" by the oh hellos.

Ethan arrives as the dark is just starting to fall, as Vanessa is funneling several bags of Halloween candy into a large plastic cauldron to set on her front porch. 

“You left your door unlocked,” he says, even though Vanessa has told him at least a dozen times that it isn’t unlocked for _everyone_ , the door is just charmed to open for a certain short list of people. He’s carrying two to-go cups, and an enormous bundle of herbs is wedged under one of his arms. “Brought us some cider, and brought _you_ some herbs from Mrs. Porter’s garden.”

He sets the ciders down on her kitchen table and kisses her hello. “You need any help?”

“You can put the cauldron on the porch, if you like.” She takes the herbs from him, squinting at the sheaf of greens, as she thumbs through them: mint, basil, parsley, already dried and ready for use. She sees Mrs. Porter at least once a week, at the community garden if not at the cafe. She could have just collected the herbs then. “ _Where_ did you get these?”

“Mrs. Porter came by for her afternoon tea,” he says, adjusting his jeans on hips. “Brought ‘em by for you, thought you might want them for whatever Halloween rituals you might have.” He flashes her a grin. ‘I didn’t tell her what they were, don’t worry.”

“Well, I appreciate that,” she says, still puzzled. “But she could have just as easily dropped them off here. It’s not as if she knew you were going to see me tonight, is it?”

Ethan shrugs. “I think we’re a direct line to each other now, as far as everyone else is concerned.”

 _Oh_ , she thinks, the pieces coming together abruptly. She and Ethan have been friends for years, but it’s only recently that people have started to consider them a unit, as if anything bestowed upon one will automatically find its way to the other. Over a month ago now, Mrs. Barrett gave her a book about local farming to pass along to Ethan, and it’s _still_ sitting on the cluttered end table near Vanessa’s staircase, even though she’s seen Ethan a dozen times since then. 

He makes a disbelieving little noise, and she looks up to see him hefting the cauldron of candy onto his hip. “Christ, Vanessa, how much’ve you got in here?”

She sets the herbs down on the kitchen table and tosses a coy little smile at him, and his face splits in a grin as he hauls the cauldron outside. “Everyone knows the witch has the best candy.”

“Well then,” he says over his shoulder, “there’s one more reason I’m lucky to be dating the witch.”

 _Dating_. The word still feels strange on her tongue, foreign and sweet, and stranger still when she looks back down at the herbs on the table. Vanessa has always thought of herself as rather separate from the rest of the town, a queer sort of offshoot content to coexist at its very edges, but the news that the local witch is dating the local werewolf has caused the town to gather her in its arms as one of its own. It reminds her a bit of high school, of watching Mina become enveloped into the fold of her latest boyfriend’s in-group.

She shakes her head, leaving the herbs behind to fill her second, smaller candy bucket. Vanessa has historically been so averse to romantic relationships that she feels out of her depth here, suddenly attached to someone so deeply when she’s so used to being on her own.

But then the object of her affections strolls back into the kitchen, looking so perfectly the part of the autumnal L.L. Bean boyfriend, or whatever Mina used to call this kind of look, and Vanessa goes soft in the center. He’s wearing a soft-looking gray sweater beneath his navy down vest, the collar of a red flannel poking out at the top, and his jeans are snug around his thick hips and thighs. His hair is pulled back into its usual untidy little bun, and he’s wearing the horn-rimmed glasses that always make Vanessa feel as if she’s seeing some secret, off-hours Ethan. When he catches her eye, his whole face lights up, his round, full cheeks pushing his glasses up.

It’s not a _bad_ thing, she reminds herself as she returns his smile, to be so attached to someone. To like the way they look, to want to touch them.

He comes up behind her, resting his chin on her head, his hands gentle on her hips. She feels herself exhale, and for a moment, the tangle of her thoughts eases. His body is soft against her, his stomach filling the well of her back, and she leans back into him. She’s read plenty of accounts of falling in love that say it feels like coming home, and she has some conflicting feelings about that — high on her list of favorite things is coming home to her empty house and knowing that her time exists entirely at her own whims. But she loves the way a room feels with Ethan in it, like the whole world is softer with him there, all its edges blunted and smelling of fresh coffee.

He kisses the top of her head, then makes a surprised little noise. “Another one?” he asks, a hand leaving her waist to tap her auxiliary candy bucket. “Is this part of your tradition?”

“To an extent,” she says, scooping a couple of candy-corn pumpkins out of the bucket. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She turns in his arms, her back against the kitchen counter, and holds the candy to his lips. He takes them obligingly, and she chases them with a quick kiss as he chews. “Usually I take some for myself while I sit outside,” she says, hooking her thumbs in his belt loops. The soft curve of his stomach pushes against hers through the squish of his vest, and she pulls him in closer. “But since you’ll be with me this year, I thought I might need a bit more.”

“Ahhh,” he says, arching a knowing eyebrow. She gives him an innocent little smile, and he shakes his head, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “That’s your plan, huh? Fortify me for the full moon with fun-size candy bars?”

“Please,” she says, feigning indignation. “I said the witch has the _best_ candy, and that certainly doesn’t include anything fun-size.”

“Answer for everything,” he says fondly, kissing the top of her head again. “We need anything else?”

“Just the ciders, I think, and a blanket,” she says, crossing the kitchen to grab the thick, fleecy one from its perch on the back of her couch in the next room. “I lit the jack o’lanterns already.”

When she comes back, Ethan’s down vest is draped over the back of one of her kitchen chairs, and he’s pulling his sweater over his head. Beneath it, a flannel shirt is straining across his soft bulk, hugging the curves of his sides, buttons puckered across the round swell of his belly. She blinks once, twice, trying to steady herself. 

“What are you supposed to be?” she asks, digging her fingertips into the blanket in her hands. The room suddenly feels twenty degrees hotter.

Ethan smirks, framing his belly with his hands. “A size smaller.”

Vanessa’s throat goes dry. “Excellent choice,” she manages, and he grins wider than the jack o’lanterns on her porch.

When she’d first mentioned her time-honored tradition of staking out her own front porch to head off cocky kids charged up on sugar and Halloween dares, it was the sort of ritual she never imagined another person would want to partake in. But Ethan had looked back at her, his brown eyes bright and game, and asked if he could tag along. 

“I suppose,” she had replied, surprised by his interest. “It really isn’t terribly exciting. Sometimes I scare them a little, make the lights flicker or throw a mysterious noise in their direction. Mostly it’s a precaution against my house getting egged.”

Ethan had laughed. “Do kids still do that?”

“Not in any of the years I’ve sat on the porch,” she’d replied. “Coincidence?”

He’d laughed, and kissed her nose, and told her he’d be glad to intimidate the local children with her, and although Vanessa couldn’t imagine _why_ , she felt like something dark and dusty in her chest had suddenly been flooded with light. A lot to feel all at once, but not — _unpleasant_.

Now, of course, she feels like it ought to be more of a production if there’s someone else involved, so she jams on the witch’s hat she keeps around for Halloween engagements and settles beside him on the porch loveseat, draping the blanket over their laps.

The night is brisk and lovely, a crisp breeze whispering among the trees behind Vanessa’s house, and someone nearby has a fire going, woodsmoke wafting warmly through the woods. She sips at the cider Ethan brought from the cafe, letting its heat spread through her. _This_ is what it feels like to be with Ethan, she thinks. A hot drink on a cold evening, the cozy sweetness of woodsmoke, an extra sweater to keep out the chill.

“Did you eat before you came?” she asks, holding her cider beneath her chin to leech up the heat. “I don’t know what shifting after a bowl of candy will do to you.”

He shoots her a knowing smile, palming his belly. Vanessa watches his taxed flannel stretch. 

“I ate plenty, don’t worry. I assume I’ll also eat later, if this town’s penchant for holidays is anything to go by. There was a full moon right after Easter this year, so I got everyone’s leftovers.” He throws an arm around her as she struggles to keep her composure. “You should have seen me. I think I lasted a half an hour on my feet working the counter the next morning before I had to go upstairs and lie down. My stomach was stretched out for days.”

She shivers, the electric excitement from his words coursing through her, and she grasps the armrest of the loveseat to ground herself. When she pulls her hand away, there are light scorch marks where her fingers rested.

“You’d better come and see me next time that happens,” she murmurs, tucking herself so close to him that she can feel the rise and fall of his breathing against her side. “I think I have some remedies for such an affliction.”

Ethan huffs out a little laugh, visible in the chilly air. “You mean your hands?”

“Maybe,” she says, close enough to his lips to kiss him. “You’ll have to find out.”

“Good thing I installed that dog door in your laundry room,” he says, his voice dropping, and in the back of her mind, Vanessa registers how ridiculous it sounds: a dog door, the height of romance. She’d purchased it herself a few weeks ago, suggesting that it might be nice for him to have another place to stay if he found himself across town at sunrise, and she’d sat on top of the dryer while he installed it and read his cards for him.

“There are good things ahead for you,” she’d told him. “And you know I’d tell you if there weren’t.”

He’d sat back on the heels of his boots, shaking his hair out of his face as he grinned up at her. “What kinda good things?”

She’d kicked her legs, gripping the edge of the dryer. “Prosperity, in your work and in your personal life. A second home, perhaps.”

“What’s it say about free labor?” he’d joked, and she’d laughed. 

“You know I’ll feed you in return.”

He’d turned that woodsmoke smile on her, and her chest had gone up like a forest fire. “You always do.”

Now, she leans forward, bringing her cold hands to his face, cupping his jaw where it’s sweetly softening and thumbing over his lips. Kissing is not always high on her list of preferred pastimes, but sometimes the confounding switch in her brain flips at just the right time, and it seems not only pleasant, but _compelling_.

She kisses him softly, her hands drifting from his face to try to gather as much of him into her arms as she can. Ethan dishes back what she gives, but doesn’t push, one hand firm at the base of her skull and one resting along the back of the loveseat, chaste.

“Guess I should tell you about stretching my stomach out more often,” he whispers when she pulls away, his cheek dimpling with a smile, and she laughs and settles against him.

He kisses the spot just below her ear, and she closes her eyes, the whole world stilling perfectly for a second. Sometimes these little moments feel like she’s stepped into someone else’s life: to be kissed conversationally on her own front porch, to feed someone with her hands, to be chosen over a cozy night at home. It’s not unpleasant — in fact, it tilts Vanessa a bit on her axis to think of just how _much_ she loves these little things — but it is _strange_ , like a dream she wakes to find is still real somehow. 

Ethan fixes her hat over her hair and lets her feed him another couple of candy-corn pumpkins. He presses a kiss to the side of her head, through her hat, and she presses another pumpkin against his lips. 

“You got anything else in there?” he asks, resting his head against hers. “You’re the only person I know who eats those as a first choice.”

“I like them!” she argues, but she rummages through the bucket anyway. 

“Just no chocolate,” he says, and she nods industriously.

“There isn’t any, I made sure,” she says, pleased that she’s one step ahead in accommodating him. While she personally feels that sometimes a _little_ stomachache can be fun, if she gets to cause it and take care of it, putting that on him on a full moon doesn’t seem fair.

She pulls a couple of packages from the bucket. “Swedish Fish? Peach rings? Sour watermelons?”

“Jelly beans?” he asks, and she paws through the colorful wrappers.

“I think so.”

“What brand?” he nudges, and Vanessa’s face heats as her fingers skim the Jelly Belly logo.

She swats at him with the bag, the plastic crinkling loudly in the quiet, and he laughs, the sound warm and round and buttery through the chill of the evening. She’s been surprised by how easily Ethan has taken to this, how quickly he’s picked up on what pushes her buttons and hasn’t hesitated to play with it — and it surprises her _more_ how much she enjoys it, how much it feels like a strange kind of trust.

“You asked for them,” she says, shaking her head, and she feeds them to him one by one, her other hand teasing at his belly, until he tips his head toward Vanessa’s long driveway.

“First kids are coming,” he says, tugging the blanket back up over his belly. Whoever it is is still out of Vanessa’s range of hearing, but she reluctantly takes her hand from his stomach and tucks it in her own lap. 

With just the jack o’lanterns and a handful of votives supplementing the single working porch light, her house looks more seasonally spooky than it ever has. Ethan had gotten so excited about carving pumpkins to put on her steps, and it felt like the kind of thing that should have made her feel vulnerable or annoyed, all of her solitary little rituals disrupted. But his enthusiasm had been contagious, and she’d caught herself getting caught up in the fun of it, in his excitement to take part in one of her traditions. Together, they’d decked out Vanessa’s wide wraparound porch with cobwebs, decorative bats, and hanging skeletons. They’d spread newspapers across her kitchen table and carved pumpkins they’d picked from the farm Ethan drove them out to last weekend — Vanessa’s has a wide, unsteady grin like the Cheshire Cat, and Ethan’s, cartoonish eyebrows and fangs. 

Ethan catches her surveying the decorations and nods approvingly. “I think we did pretty well,” he says. “It definitely looks haunted.”

“I was going to say ‘like a witch lives here,” she counters, and Ethan laughs.

“It looked like _that_ before we decorated. You need to mow your lawn more often.”

Vanessa has never mowed her lawn. Like the dishes, the bills, and the laundry, it’s one of those everlasting tasks that feels overwhelming in its perpetuity. Instead, she charms it short again with a small glyph she burns into the backyard once a month or so, when its tickle against her ankles reminds her that it’s getting overgrown. “That’s rather the point of being a witch,” she tells him, and his face splits into a grin in the shadowy orange light. “It’s a lifestyle, not simply a seasonal engagement.”

He raises an eyebrow. “And a reason to completely ignore your home upkeep.”

“Yes,” says Vanessa, smiling, “that’s one of the perks.”

He shakes his head. “Wish you’d let me fix that porch light,” he says, but she shakes her head.

“I like it that way. I can make it flicker if I focus. It keeps the children from getting any ideas.”

A group of figures, two tall and one small, ambles up toward the porch, and Vanessa recognizes them as John Clare and Marjorie and Marjorie’s son. She waves to John Clare as Marjorie’s son, dressed as a pirate, darts up to the cauldron of candy.

Vanessa narrows her eyes. The dark porch light flickers. Marjorie’s son jumps back with a yelp, then scoops a handful of candy into his bucket and skips back to his mother, giggling.

“See?” she says to Ethan. “Kids love it.”

Ethan shakes his head affectionately. “Happy Halloween!” he calls to the group of them, and Vanessa’s hand tightens fondly around his in her lap.

“You’re supposed to be frightening!” she teases.

“Ah, I’ll be frightening later,” he says, waving a hand. “What’s more frightening than a giant hairy beast running around the neighborhood taking food off people’s porches?”

She pats his belly under the blanket. “I think it’s generally a bit less scary when the food has been left for you.”

“Oh, right!” he says, his eyes lighting up. She shoots him a questioning glance, a package of candy half-torn open in her lap. He motions for her to pass it to him, and he shifts under the blanket so he can face her.

“So Mrs. Delaney came in as I was starting to close up — this was _before_ I put on this shirt — and you know, we got to talking, and she told me just how _healthy_ I’m looking these days.” He meets her gaze, and Vanessa stills, feeling her eyes grow wide. “And, uh, she told me to tell you that you’re clearly having a good effect on me, if I’m looking so _settled_ and so _content_.”

Vanessa goes hot. “You do look content,” she grinds out as her mind short-circuits. Ethan’s weight has been steadily creeping up since before they got together, but it does something to her to think that people in town associate it with _her_ . At least they seem to understand that her intentions are good, rather than thinking she’s fattening him up to eat him like a fairy-tale witch. But still — has it gotten to be so much that people are _noticing_? 

The porch light flickers again as she struggles to make sense of her thoughts beyond how _hot_ it is that people have noticed Ethan softening and assumed it’s because he’s so happy with her. Which _also_ feels strange — is she the kind of person who calls things _hot_ now? It feels a bit like giving up part of herself to admit it, when she’s always prided herself on her ability to live without the trappings and distractions of relationships and desire.

But she _wants this_ , and that, in and of itself, is startling in how sure of it she is. It was always Mina who had boyfriends, who knew what boys wanted and who, crucially, wanted it back. Vanessa, loath to anything beyond holding hands, claimed to prefer solitude rather than admit her confusion, and she’s carried that claim well into adulthood. She knows it’s true, to some degree — she cherishes her aloneness, finds that she’s often her own best company — but Ethan has turned all that upside down. Her feelings for Mina, so long ago now, curled her into herself, but her feelings for Ethan are struggling out of her chest like blooms from beneath concrete, and she feels herself starting to uncurl, searching for the sun. 

Ethan doesn’t seem to have the same hangups about intimacy. Perhaps he’s more cautious now, after having his heart broken falling so hard for Brona. Perhaps he looks even as he leaps. But the openness of him, his all-encompassing loyalty and warmth, don’t suggest that he has a problem allowing himself to become attached to someone. To have an _effect_ on someone, so visibly that another person might notice. But there’s something so magnetic in the idea that her affection can be not only deeply felt but _tangible_. It makes her fingertips tingle, and the skeletons hanging from her porch swing out of time with the wind.

He’s grinning at her expectantly, and just the image of him clobbers her with want: his hair escaping from its little bun, falling around his face, glasses resting on his round cheeks. His belly rests in his lap, the white of his undershirt visible through the straining buttons of his flannel. He doesn’t just look like this _because_ of her, she thinks, part of this is just _for her_ , and that’s — that is _so much_.

“Another perk of dating the witch,” she recovers, trying to imbue her voice with something playful. “All your happiness goes straight to your stomach.”

Ethan grins, and she lets out a trapped exhale. “I’d say you’ve put a fair amount on my hips as well.”

He pops another handful of candy into his mouth and catches a burp in his fist, and Vanessa curls her hands into tight little buds. 

“ _You_ don’t mind, do you?” she asks hesitantly, angling a sideways look at him. “That it shows?”

He shakes his head so surely. “Nope. They think you’re good for me, and I think they’re right. And besides, when your body changes its entire shape three nights a month, some extra fat’s hardly the worst thing that can happen.” He reaches into her lap for another packet of candy. “Does it bother _you_? I know you have your, uh, reputation on the line here. Can’t have people knowing you’re soft inside, right?”

Vanessa’s blush flares up again. It sounds vaguely embarrassing when Ethan brings it up, her pride in being visibly strange, for always being slightly out of time with everyone around her. 

“It’s a little bit odd,” she says slowly. “I haven’t been with someone like this in a long time, and I’m not — I’m not used to it. I’m not used to people thinking of me in relation to someone else. Being alone has always felt — fittingly arcane, both as a witch and as someone asexual.”

It isn’t the first time she’s said it aloud to him, but each time she names it, she worries that somehow _this_ will be the time he rejects it. But instead he just nods, his eyes intently on hers. Without looking, he finds her hand in her lap and takes it.

“I love that you feel content because of me,” she says, carefully and deliberately, like if she couches the sentiment in a different conversation, she can tell him without _really_ telling him. “I love that it’s visible, how much I care for you. But it throws me, sometimes, to be seen as a unit when I’m so used to just being — me. Even though you do make me feel content, and even though I _want_ to be with you — it’s a difficult thing to unlearn.”

He nods again, settling her against him. “I get it,” he says, fingering the tendrils of hair escaping from her updo. “I was alone for a long time, too. It’s hard to — to understand yourself as part of someone else. To let people in, or at least it was for me. You build yourself up as this impenetrable, self-sufficient thing, and then you meet someone who cracks you open and sees inside, and even more horrifying, you want to _let them_?” 

She laughs weakly, and he squeezes her hand, kisses her cheek gently. “I understand you,” he says, which Vanessa privately feels is the most intimate phrase in the English language. “And honestly, I’m no expert at this either, so we’re muddling through it together. Okay?”

“Okay,” she agrees, and for a moment it’s just the night murmuring gently around them.

“Perhaps our feelings are the most frightening thing of all,” she stage-whispers, and Ethan laughs, his big body going loose with it. 

He finds her hand under the blanket and clasps it. “Vanessa,” he says, and the word is so loaded, so poised on the edge of something, that she catches her breath.

“Yes?”

“Will you undo my buttons?” he asks, grinning sheepishly. “I’m dying, they’re so tight. Please.”

Her laughter bursts out of her before she can stop it, and she swats him playfully. “Deviant,” she mutters, and he laughs too, deep and fond.

“No one’s coming?” she asks, and he tilts his head toward the street, listens.

“Nah, we’ve got a few minutes.”

“Well, then,” says Vanessa, tugging the blanket away from his waist, “we’d better make you comfortable.” She rattles the candy bucket. “We still have quite a bit to go.”

— 

Later, Vanessa sits perched on Mina’s stone in the graveyard, Mina’s ghostly form on the stone beside her. Under the blue moon, her silvery shape is almost fully opaque, if Vanessa just looks out of the corner of her eye. The veil is so thin tonight, between the lunar cycle and the holiday, that when Mina hugged her hello earlier, she could almost feel it in a real, corporeal way, instead of her usual cold mist. Other ghosts roam the cemetery grounds, chatting among themselves, taking advantage of the strong moonlight to frolic and stretch their legs. Ethan darts between them, paws wet with dew, but Vanessa and Mina keep to themselves, in the corner of the grounds where the worn, crumbling stones gradually turn shiny and new. 

“You brought him along,” says Mina, surprised, and Vanessa nods. 

“I hope you don’t mind. He’ll run off on his own soon enough, I think.”

“Oh, _I_ don’t mind,” says Mina, bringing a knee up to rest her chin on it. “I see you every Friday. I never get to see _him_.”

“I’m afraid he isn’t much for conversation at the moment,” Vanessa says, laughing. She pats at her knee to get Ethan’s attention, and he trots past Mina’s stone to pause by Vanessa and tip his head back. She fondles his ears affectionately, and he tilts his head toward her, panting happily. 

Mina shakes her head. “So it’s going well?” she asks, and Ethan _wuff_ s in her direction before loping off again. 

Vanessa nods slowly. “I really like him,” she murmurs, and Mina crows beside her, a sharp, joyful sound that pierces the quiet murmur of the graveyard.

“It’s so new to see you excited about someone.”

“I know,” says Vanessa, crossing her legs at the ankles. “I know. I suppose I just — I worry that I’ll lose a part of myself, somehow. It feels so mundane: I’m dating a boy. He owns a cafe, he shops at the farmer’s market, he wears those puffy vests. It’s all so _normal_.”

“You’re dating a werewolf,” corrects Mina, running her fingers through her sheet of silvery hair. “Who, L.L. Bean boyfriend or not, owns a cafe full of supernatural books for all to see, and whose neighbors leave food out for him because he’s _their_ werewolf.”

Vanessa looks at her, surprised. “You’ve been paying attention.”

“Of course I am! You’ve never dated anyone like this before, of course I’m going to remember _everything_ about him. But that’s not my point. You’re a medium dating a werewolf in this weird little town, and you’re afraid you’re going to lose yourself because it feels _normal_?”

Vanessa shrugs helplessly. “It doesn’t feel like me,” she says in a small voice. “But I _want_ it.”

“Then let yourself have it,” says Mina, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “You’ve made being alone your thing for so long, and I get that it might feel like it’s giving up a piece of yourself to be with someone else instead. But it’s okay for that to change. It doesn’t make you less — you.” She shrugs, her wide eyes finding Vanessa’s. “Or less asexual. If you want it, then it _is_ you, no matter what your old self might think — or what she thinks she’s _supposed_ to think.”

But Vanessa’s asexuality is so slippery that way: it’s so easy to feel like her loneliness is baked into it, like to want someone is to disavow her identity. She takes a deep breath, wrapping her coat tighter around herself. She is asexual. She wants him, and those things can coexist, because they _do_ coexist, in the garden tangle of her heart. Even if it’s hard to accept, that is true, and it’s hers. 

“When did you get so wise?” she teases Mina, to disguise the fact that she’s putting herself back together. She takes another breath, deeper. 

Mina hops off the gravestone. “You can’t imagine how much the old women talk in here. Well — _you_ probably can. They know so much. And they have _so_ many opinions. But they’re nice to talk to.”

“Do they talk about me?” Vanessa asks, taken aback. It takes significantly more out of her to tune into ghosts already at rest — that’s much more Mina’s jurisdiction — and though she’s aware of their presence, it’s difficult to actually _listen_. 

Mina nods. “I’ve told them all about you, they love you. Every time you come in, they perk up.”

“Oh,” says Vanessa, feeling a bit like she’s floating despite the chill of the granite seeping through her skirt. “Well. Perhaps I should take their advice. _Your_ advice.” 

“Oh, I’m just the medium,” says Mina breezily. “But yes. You should. Go home and tell your wolfman you love him, and tell him all the old ladies buried here do too. They’re always going on about _how heavy that boy’s guilt is_.” She flips her hair over her shoulder. “Given, I think you’re more interested in him being a different kind of heavy, but still.”

Vanessa blushes, cackles at being seen through so easily. Her chest feels lighter, looser than when she entered the graveyard.

“I’ll let him know,” she says, holding her hand out to Mina and slipping off the gravestone so they can walk to the cemetery gate together. 

“Do you need to get home?” Mina asks, lacing her fingers with Vanessa’s. It feels like clasping hands with water. “Or can we haunt a while longer?

Vanessa smiles. “Let’s haunt.”

— 

The dawn is just starting to break through the curtains when she hears Ethan come back in. There’s the muffled ruckus of him squeezing back through the dog door downstairs, transforming back, and moving around unsteadily as he readjusts to two legs instead of four, and she lays listening in her cocoon of quilts, basking in the anticipation of his warmth beside her. 

The stairs creak as he makes his way up, and Vanessa pulls the covers tighter around her as the dark form of him comes lumbering into the bedroom. She watches him out of heavy, half-closed eyes. There’s something about watching him in her space that fills her chest with a tender, living warmth, seeing how well he fits amid her high ceilings and strange artifacts.

He pauses in the doorway for a moment, and Vanessa squirms as she realizes he’s catching his breath, one hand massaging the side of his stomach gently. He stifles a belch as he takes off his glasses and places them on her bedside table, and she fights her urge to react, to make a sound or curl further into herself. His hair is loose around his face, and he’s wearing one of the soft post-shift t-shirts and pairs of sweats he tucked into one of her laundry room cubbies after he installed the dog door. He looks thick and soft and indulged, his stomach swollen enough to pull up his t-shirt and expose a few inches of buttery skin.

(When he’d first left the clothes in her laundry room, he’d caught her in precisely the moment that she’d wondered what size he might be, and he’d grinned, one eyebrow arching up.

“XL,” he’d said, gathering her in his arms, “you deviant,” and she’d given a strangled little laugh against his soft chest, her hands settling on the curves of his plump hips. “But not for long, if we keep this up.”)

Now, he tucks his hair behind his ears and flicks on the softer of the two lights in the bathroom, and Vanessa shifts. She wants to graze her fingers against that bit of belly that isn’t covered by his t-shirt, weigh it in her palm. His upper arms are getting chubby too, thick and tanned from the warm weather against the white cotton of his shirt, and she longs for him beside her, close enough that she can run her hands over all his softening places and grab. 

His belly jiggles gently as he brushes his teeth, and he steadies it with his free hand, leaning toward the mirror. She smiles to herself, her toes curling beneath the sheets. 

Ethan eases into bed, a low groan escaping him, and Vanessa’s breath catches as the mattress dips beneath his weight. He smells sweet and earthy, wet leaves and fresh dirt, with something like musk and wolf mixed in. His eyes crinkle when he looks over at her, and she offers him a sleepy smile.

“I was hoping you’d be up,” he murmurs, grinning, and he presses a quick kiss to her jaw before burrowing in beside her, shoulder to shoulder, his breathing slow and heavy. “I’m stuffed.”

She rolls up onto her elbow, already reaching for him, and splays her palm across the expanse of his stomach. Under the layer of pudge cushioning his middle, his belly is hard and bloated, and she traces its curve, from where it arches out from his sternum to where it begins to soften again around his navel. “Oh, you _did_ eat well.”

“Gorged myself,” he agrees in a low voice, pulling her in to kiss the skin below her ear. The movement draws a soft grunt out of him, and Vanessa grabs at a handful of his stomach to steady herself. “Bit of a tight squeeze getting back through that dog door like this.”

He eases onto his back, his stomach sloshing, and Vanessa slips her hand beneath his t-shirt, his skin hot and soft against hers. Just below his navel, there’s a patch of skin rubbed pink, and she thumbs at it gently. “ _Oh_ ,” she says, “you poor thing. Does it hurt?”

“Nah,” he says, shifting his weight. “That doesn’t. My stomach does, though, a little. People left a _lot_ of food out tonight. Must be the holiday.”

Vanessa’s hand jerks like it’s been shocked. “And certainly not everything you ate before you shifted,” she teases, her fingers closing around a thick handful of Ethan’s stomach.

He groans, closing his eyes. “All those — _hic_ — damn little pumpkins.”

She rubs at the underside of his belly, and the sound it makes when she applies a bit of pressure has her digging the nails of her other hand into her palm. “I’m sorry,” she stumbles, but Ethan shakes his head.

“No, it helped.” He turns his head and sloppily stifles a burp in her shoulder. “Oof, _I’m_ sorry. Christ, now that I’m down I can just _barely_ move. Like I had just enough energy to get home and now I’m beached here until I digest.”

She nods, following the curve of his side with one hand. “I’ll take care of you,” she murmurs, and he nods dreamily, eyes half-closed. “Tell me where it’s sore.”

He covers her hand with his own and moves it left, and she carefully massages the taut area. “Anything interesting tonight?” she asks. “It must be nearly casserole season again, hmm?”

The corners of his mouth curl up in a mischievous grin. “You’re gonna love the return of the casseroles,” he says, and she pinches the soft part of his belly gently. “Someone had a whole thing of dog treats out on the porch tonight,” he adds, his eyes fluttering closed. “I don’t know if they were for me, but I ate ‘em anyway.”

She laughs, applying a little pressure to his stomach. “Maybe from that new dog bakery,” she muses. “Did you like them? I’m not opposed to keeping some here for your shifts.”

She tries to sound subtle, but Ethan sees through her, laughing. “Couldn’t tell you if I liked them,” he says, palming his swollen belly. “They were there, so I ate ‘em. You know how the wolf is.”

“Yes, you and your ravenous appetites,” she teases, kissing his forehead, his closed eyes. When she presses her lips to his, she feels him smile.

“Mina was happy to see you,” she says, stroking his hair away from his face. “She likes you a lot, it’s very sweet.”

“There were so many ghosts out!” he says, lighting up, and she grins at his delight. “Usually I can’t see them, I just kind of feel them there, but tonight they were like — like when you take your glasses off and the lights look all hazy and blurred. Is that what it’s like for you all the time?”

“It’s not _unlike_ it,” she says. “I suppose I see them more as sort of — translucent ideas of a person, if that makes sense. The suggestion, if not a full-out specter. Mina looked very corporeal tonight. We hid by the gates and scared the kids who came by.”

Ethan laughs. “Always nice to see you getting involved in the community.” He rolls a little to the side, as if trying to turn over, but flops back after a moment, his stomach protesting unhappily. “Will you — _urp_. Christ, I'm so full. Thank god you like this, honestly. I’d be suffering if it weren’t for you.”

“Thank you for indulging me,” she says, grabbing a gentle handful of his stomach. Stretch marks are just starting to appear on his skin, and she thumbs over each, curling down to kiss them. Ethan whines, a little noise that makes her heart stammer, and when she settles back beside him, he clasps her hand in his lazily, his eyes growing heavier.

“You’re lovely like this,” she murmurs, gazing at him in the gentle purple dark, a feeling in her chest like a lily bursting into bloom. 

He burps again, his stomach jumping. “Ugh. Am I? I feel like a whale.”

“You _are_ ,” she says earnestly, her hand finding his underbelly, where his skin feels like velvet. “You look — tantalizing, though I think that sounds a bit silly. But it’s true. Your eyes get so heavy, and the _sounds_ you make — and the _feel_ of you, how soft you are —”

He smiles suddenly, and she stops, self-conscious at having gotten carried away. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says, still smiling. “Just like seeing you get excited.”

“Oh,” she says softly, and he reaches up to cradle the back of her head in his hand, pulls her down to kiss her. 

“I love how tender you are when I’m like this,” he says quietly, and her heart hiccups. “It feels nice. Safe.”

She goes warm, pressing herself closer to him. “It’s strange to think of it as tender,” she admits. “When it feels so — I don’t like any of the words for it. So _hot_ , I suppose. Ugh.” She shudders exaggeratedly. “But I guess it is, isn’t it? I just want you to feel — sated. Cared for.”

He nods, his chin doubling. “I will admit that I like being the one person who can get you hot and bothered.”

“Oh, don’t say _that_ ,” she protests playfully, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder. “You’re allowed to enjoy it, but _talking_ about it like that — it sounds so clinical.”

“Okay, okay,” he says, laughing. “I won’t. But I like it. I like teasing you with it, like getting you excited.”

She swallows what feels like a ball of sun in her throat. “Well, then,” she says, propping herself on her elbow beside him. “Is it terrible of me to wonder what your appetite will be like tomorrow? If you managed so much tonight?”

“Oh, probably huge,” he says, the corner of his mouth crooking up. “Why? You got plans? You buy out the stock of all those little pumpkins?”

She grins in spite of herself. “Perhaps. At any rate, I think it could be a lot of fun to experiment with.”

“Breakfast’s on you tomorrow, then,” he says, stifling a hiccup. “If you can roll me out of bed.”

“Yes,” she agrees, tracing the soft line of his jaw, then his lips, with her fingertip. “As much as you can eat. In bed, if you want it.”

“Deal,” he murmurs, and she kisses him softly until he yawns, his stomach echoing the sound with a rumble.

“Go to sleep,” she murmurs, laying her arm over his belly. “You _will_ have to go to work eventually.”

He groans. “You know, the counter’s just about high enough to rest my stomach on, if I need to.”

Vanessa twitches. “You cannot tell me that as I’m about to go to sleep.”

He kicks out a drowsy laugh, kissing her cheek. “You can dream about it.”

She kisses his neck from its base up to his jaw, one hand still playing with his underbelly. “If I let you leave tomorrow without giving you a book on local farming,” she murmurs, stroking at his hair, “I need you to call me and make mundane threats until I bring it by the cafe.”

He laughs, bracing his hand against his stomach. “What kind of threats?”

“Oh, that you’ll come over and rearrange all of my books by a system you made up yourself, or that you’ll take up jogging and ask me to join you, or that you’ll tell everyone in town that I’m quite soft inside, actually.” 

The corners of his eyes crinkle, the dimple appearing in his cheek as his mouth turns up.

“Well, I hope you do forget,” he whispers back, reaching up with his other hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Then I get to call you, and then you’ll come see me at work, and you’ll tell me about something from work, and you’ll probably argue with me about whether or not you can look at one of my books while you have your coffee, and you’ll probably forget to give me the book you came to give me, and then you’ll have to come back and see me again.”

“You’re very terrible,” she says, pinching his belly gently and hoping he can tell from her tone that she thinks he is very, very far from terrible. “Roll over so I can hold you.”

He makes a long-suffering sound. “If I can.”

Gently, she helps him turn onto his side, the little gasp he gives as the weight in his stomach shifts sending a shock up through her spine, her hands. She reaches around him to cradle his belly, resting her chin on his shoulder, and she plays with his hair with her free hand. He makes a soft, contented sound, and she kisses his cheek fondly as he dozes.

When she’d invited him to tag along to the cemetery to visit Mina, he had paused, scrubbing the back of neck with one hand. 

“I’d love to come,” he’d said, “but I can’t guarantee I’ll stay the whole time. I get restless at the full moon, the wolf needs to run. But I can come for a while, if that’s all right with you.”

“Of course,” she’d said, surprised. “Run all you need.”

Even then, she realizes, he was asking for exactly what she wants: space to still be himself, space he doesn’t want to compromise. She sees them in the rise and fall of his breathing, waxing and waning, the rhythmic toward and away. They set the rules for this endeavor, and they can build that space in for each other: one in the graveyard, the other running beneath the moon.

“I love you,” she whispers, and she expects it to feel frightening, but instead she feels something crack open deep within her, as if the vines inside her have finally broken free of their prison. It’s as if she couldn’t have held it inside a moment longer, and it’s just as Ethan said earlier — she wants him to _know_ , to see this leap she’s taken.

He makes a soft, sleepy sound, and turns back over with some difficulty, exhaling hard as he tucks his chin against her shoulder, his belly round against her back. “I love you, too,” he murmurs, and the crush of relief and joy bubbles like a potion through her veins, intoxicating her.

“I thought I was going to hold you,” she whispers, grinning wildly into the dark.

“Hold me in the morning,” he whispers back, “after breakfast,” and as the sun begins its slow creep in through the window, she settles into his arms, and lets herself be held.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! pls be gentle with yourself this week, take care of yourself, and take breaks if you can. you matter and you are valuable, and i am very happy that you're here.
> 
> here's where to find me on [tumblr](http://www.alittlepudge-neverhurtnobody.tumblr.com)! as always, it means a lot to me that you're here.


End file.
